Three Wishes
by JMK758
Summary: Sarah McGee learns a valuable lesson: Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.


Three Wishes

by: JMK758

The telephone was ringing in the dark apartment when the door flew open, letting a shaft of light from the hall illuminate the room as Sarah McGee hurried to her living room table, a large brown paper wrapped box in her hands. Dropping the box on the table, she snatched the phone's receiver, at the same time hitting the light switch with her other hand."Hello?" she exclaimed, breathless. "Oh, hi Karen, I just got in, I was down at the Post Office." She regarded the cubical package, about 10" to a side, sitting on the table, and the mailing label affixed to it. "Yeah, a delivery from my grandfather, in Ireland. His estate, really; grandpa's been dead for months. No, I haven't opened it. I'm waiting until I hang up, so my obsessively curious friend doesn't find out almost before I do. You're welcome a lot.

"Tomorrow night? I don't know. I just don't care for the idea of blind dates." She looked in the mirror, where a chestnut haired young woman of nineteen, with a figure she regarded as o.k. but average, looked back at her.

"I don't know; maybe if I had long, silky blonde hair, legs that won't quit and million dollar boobies I might." She laughed. "Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, but the answer is still 'no'. Besides, you don't need me along to have that kind of a good time.

"Well, I'm stopping by the Day Hospital; someone there I want to see. Then I'm going to hop over and see the Nationals game this afternoon. Well, you gotta support the home team. Yes, Kathy, I know they're having a rough time, that's _why_ you have to support them! Okay, you just don't understand."

She smiled, "No, I'm not going to tell you either," she grinned again at the outraged squawk that came over the line. "Look, I've gotta go, I'll talk to you tomorrow. Promise. Ok, day after. Have a good time. I'd tell you to be good but you never do both; and besides, I know better. Bye!" She hung up quickly, cutting off the outraged exclamation. Taking a deep breath, she sighed, looking at the box on the table. "Now, let's just see what you are, shall we?"

x

She picked up the box and gave it an experimental shake. Something inside thumped against the sides, but she could hardly guess what. She tried to imagine what her grandfather, whom she hadn't seen since she was nine when he'd returned to the 'Old Country', would leave her in his Will, for that was surely what it was, she decided. On the way home she had tried to summon up an image in her mind of the old man, old even then it seemed, but could not. Ten years since she'd seen him, almost half of that since she'd even thought of him. She was sorry that he was dead, but she had done any grieving months ago when her mother had phoned with the news. She'd virtually forgotten him but, looking at the box before her, it was clear that he had not forgotten her. What could he have sent?

She started to unwrap it. Beyond being wrapped in plain brown paper and bearing the usual, she supposed, duty stickers and international postage thingies, it was thoroughly unenlightening as to its contents.

The box itself was an entirely different matter. It was a deep brown, she supposed mahogany, and richly - no; ornately carved throughout its surface with lush landscapes enhanced with Celtic symbolism. The highly polished wood picked up the lights in the room and served to enhance the pastoral scenes carved into all six of its surfaces.

The lid comprised the top inch of it, and was so intricately crafted that the seam, which cut into the images on its four sides, was almost undetectable. In fact, she had to look very closely even to make out the tiny hinges it the back.

"Lovely," she breathed, taken by the beauty of the case. "Thank you, grandpa. But what's inside?" There seemed to be no lock that she could see, so she slowly lifted the lid, very slowly, savoring the moment.

x

The lid flew back from her fingers with a blinding white flash and a burst of noise that resounded with her shriek as she fell backward.

The next thing she realized she was on her bottom, blinking and rubbing her tearing eyes, amazed to still be alive as she tried to focus her eyes after the brilliant flash. Her breath was coming in ragged, panicked gasps, her pounding heart racing in her heaving chest. She could barely believe that her apartment was not reduced to a billion pieces of kindling, but instead appeared quite normal. In fact, the offending box was sitting placidly upon the table before her as though nothing had happened.

But then as her mind, all unwillingly, replayed the moment for her in real time, she 'heard' the blast of noise again and it didn't sound quite so much like an explosion this time. In fact, as her brain resolved it, though she was still gasping too heavily for speech, her lips moved in silent incomprehension; 'Harp music?'

Slowly getting to her knees, she cautiously, by aid of chair and table leg, pulled herself up, expecting at any moment the devastating though delayed concussion which would destroy her.

Flush now with the tabletop, she regarded the inoffensive box sitting so serenely upon the table. Boosting herself off her knees by her grip on the table, prepared for anything, she got level with the top of the open box, her breath ragged in her pounding chest. Higher still as more of the box was revealed to her until she froze, awkwardly holding herself by tabletop and chair, still not quite on her feet, the apartment absolutely silent as she forgot to breathe.

x

The man, for such he surely was though barely 6" tall, smiled up at her "Ah, sure'n it's good to be out, after more months than I care to count cooped up in this wee chest. I don't mind it none usually, but after so long a fellah just has to stretch his legs." The man, dressed in fine emerald attire and sporting a top hat surmounted by a tiny shamrock, smiled up at her. Sarah, however, could do no more than stare in openmouthed stupefaction.

"You are, I take it, Miss Sarah McGee, granddaughter of the right honorable Sean McGee of Sligo?" Unable to elicit a response, the diminutive newcomer continued. "Allow me to present meself. I am Seamus MacCathain," he said, pronouncing it 'Mac-ca-tain', "once of Ulster, at your service." His smile slowly faded, replaced by a look of concern. "I beg your pardon, me pretty Colleen; I don't mean to be forward, seeing how we just met and all, and this is, I'm sure, very personal but . . . shouldn't you be breathing?"

At the words, Sarah's paralysis broke with a massive gasp, drawing breath so violently she almost collapsed, half over and clutching to the table for fear of falling as her starved lungs demanded their due. When she had recovered at least enough to try to speak, though her voice still largely deserted her, she tried several times to form words as the visitor waited with a patient smile. "Wha— What a— What are— What are you?"

"Well, me pretty Colleen, me kind and I go by many names; some of them not all that complimentary, I'll tell," he finished in a conspiratorial half-whisper before resuming normally. "Some they call us 'the wee folk', others 'sprites', some 'elves'." Sarah, having recovered her breath but having exhausted the limit of putting thought into intelligible words, just continued to stare in wide-eyed stupefaction, forcing the conversation to remain one- sided; a situation it seemed her diminutive visitor had no trouble at all with.

"Now there be those who'll be calling us 'gnomes', some 'fairies'; though I'll tell you the fairies don't like it none. Then there are the wiser, who call us rightly 'Leprechauns', as we be wont to call ourselves. But sure'n, lass, I'll be quite content with whatever it is you want to call me, just so long as it's not late for supper."

x

The denouement on such a hoary and horrendous joke snapped Sarah out of her spell and she stood up, her mind finally working in partnership with her body.

"Wait a minute!" she exclaimed with a chopping motion of her hand, as if physically cutting off the other's torrent of words. "You're telling me that you're a God honest _Leprechaun_?"

"Aye, Lass, that I be."

"There are no such things as —!" She broke off, the declaration sounding ludicrous to her own ears, in light of the evidence right before her eyes. Seamus MacCathain smiled up at her, waiting patiently. "I mean . . ." she broke off, turning away, "I don't know what I mean!"

x

A few seconds later she turned back, but even as she opened her mouth to speak she found the box empty. Distressed, she looked about on the table. She had barely believed that a 6" man could get out of a 9" box without help, but clearly he had and he was gone.

"I realize this is a surprise," said a voice right at her ear! She turned sharply, startled, and found the sprite standing on her shoulder! Her piercing shriek split the air as she fell to the floor, but in that same moment her shoulder was bare. She looked around wildly, and then saw her visitor peek out cautiously from behind the box on the table. "My Lord, girl, you scared the bejesus out of me. I'm not used to women screaming at me!"

"YOU'RE not used to –!" She couldn't find any words to finish, and even so she regretted her scream only in that she was sure it would attract attention. But when there was no sound of anxious pounding on her door, she tried to think of something to say. Of course, her new companion had no such difficulty.

"No, not at all, though I suppose that you are hardly to blame and I do apologize for startling you. One tends to forget how much a mortal gets scared, not knowing us and all."

Sarah finally managed to break in with a question that she felt was at least halfway intelligent. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, me pretty Colleen, that were your own late, most lamented grandfather Sean, a very good friend for a long time as humans live," he said sadly, but then brightened as quickly. "Forty-three years he and I were together, and what times they were I can surely tell you.

"Well, anyway, he knew his time was come, so he says to me 'Seamus', he says, 'Seamus, after I'm gone you go in yon box to America, and you take good care of my granddaughter Sarah' he said, wagging his finger in time for emphasis. So gone is he, though ne'er forgotten, and here I be."

Sarah stared at him for a long time.

x

"No. No way! Cat, yes. Dog, yes. There is just no _way_ I'm going to be able to explain a 6" Leprechaun!"

"Aye, but that's the beauty of it, don't you see? No one can see or hear me but you. And you felt me before; I've no weight to speak of. You could carry me about on your lovely shoulder all day and not wear your pretty self out."

"And just what would you do?"

"Why, me lovely, anything you want. I can grant you any wish; your slightest whim granted."

"You did this for my grandpa?"

"Aye, for three and forty years he and I were bosom companions. And I could not have asked for better. Aye, lass, any other man would have a long way to go to be half up to him at his meanest; and at his best I dare say there's hardly a man alive who could make the grade."

"Well, with a compliment like that, what can I say?"

"Only 'Yes' and twill be done."

x

"Well . . . I suppose we could try it. I don't know what else I _can_ do. I can't exactly give you first class air fare back to Ireland, could I?"

"I don't even think your customs people would quite know what to make of me," he said with an ingratiating smile.

"I don't even know who could help me with this. Anyway, I don't have a lot of time. I guess I should be fair and try it." In a flash the green suited Leprechaun was off the table and perched comfortably on her right shoulder. Startled, Sarah forced herself not to pull away. "Wow, blink and you miss it!"

"I beg your pardon, lass?"

"Did you just disappear?"

"No, lass, I'm just a mite faster than most."

x

Sarah left her apartment with her new companion perched comfortably on her shoulder, and could not truly be said to be comfortable herself. She was certain that the first person she encountered was going to have a major reaction to the sight of a 6", green suited Leprechaun seated on her shoulder. But when this did not happen, and she kept checking at each non-reaction to see if Seamus MacCathain was still there, she began to feel more confident."What you'll be wanting to remember in our conversing is that though yon mortals canna see nor hear me in any way, they can see and hear you."

"Don't worry, I've seen everything from 'Quantum Leap' to 'My Partner the Ghost'." There was a brief silence.

"If I can be understanding your rather odd way of speaking - and believe me sometimes it's a challenge, I can tell you - then I'll be taking that to be a 'yes'."

"_My_ odd way of —" she started to exclaim before noticing the reaction of the man passing her. She continued on without looking back.

"Ah, me, I can be seeing that this relationship is something that will be taking a lot of work for both of us."

"Tell me, do you get paid by the word?"

2

The 'Day Hospital' was not literally that. Rather it was several rooms converted to offices and rented from a church. It was more a clinic than a bedded hospital, used by a psychiatric center for treating several of its clients. "And you say it's in trouble?" Seamus asked as they were leaving the church hall.

"We have to leave, to try to find better facilities, a bigger building to house us. But it's hard finding something we can afford."

"So, it's a better place that would suit you," he said in a speculative tone. "But tell me about this game you'll be going to."

"Baseball? Oh, that's a wonderful game. You'll just love it. Have you ever seen one before?"

"No."

"Well, you'll have a good time."

x

As confident as Sarah was, and as flamboyant as she became, she could sense that Seamus just wasn't getting it. Not that she, seated between two fans, could do much to explain it. All, however, went reasonably well, with the pair expressing equal parts enthusiasm and befuddlement until the opposing shortstop fumbled an easy double play and allowed the Nationals to load the bases.

The team's best power hitter was up, and the crowd was on its feet, forty thousand fans screaming themselves hoarse for a spectacular Grand Slam. "Knock it out of the park!" Sarah screamed, her strident voice carrying over the din. Seamus, seeing her expression and fervent manner, decided he had finally heard something he understood.

The ball left the pitcher's hand, a perfect corkscrew motion 'impossible' to hit; the batter brought his implement around and the ball shot out of the batter's box as though fired from a cannon! Its perfectly straight trajectory was seemingly propelled by the climactic yell of forty thousand throats. It sailed straight at the scoreboard and blew through it, leaving a sparking, baseball sized hole right where the third inning Nationals score had been!

The roar of the crowd turned off as though someone had thrown a switch as the board sparked, sputtered and blinked on and off like a spastic Christmas tree, finally shorting itself out in a climactic rain of sparks!

The silence was deafening as eighty thousand eyes stared at the dark board. In all the stadium it seemed only the first base runner retained any presence of mind. Continuing at a moderate walk, he gathered his fellow players before him and the three in their turn crossed the plate, completely unopposed.

Sarah turned her head slowly to look at the Leprechaun on her left shoulder, her eyes and mouth feeling equally wide.

"That wasn't what you wanted?"

x

In the Ladies room, the only place she could think of where she could have some privacy, Sarah confronted Seamus. If there had been a line the excited roars, followed by the noise, fireworks and capped by the utter silence had dissipated it, so for the moment Sarah felt secure.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?" she demanded in a whispered yell, itself a considerable accomplishment.

"Granting your wish, I was. 'Knock it out of the park', says you. I'm sorry for the damage, I didna expect him to hit it in that particular direction. I can fix it, however, won't be more than a -"

"NO!" Sarah exclaimed, hands out. She had almost jumped on him in an aborted attempt to restrain him. "Bad enough one unexplainable mystery; if you 'fix' it there will _really _be problems!"

"All right, me pretty Colleen."

"Listen! From now on, no more magic. Not unless I specifically _**ask**_ for it, ok?"

"All right. If that's the way you want it."

"Yes. That's the way I want it." She turned away, trying to get her nerves back under control. "Now maybe then we can survive this."

"I suppose . . ." he began tentatively, speaking to her back, "I suppose this would not be the best time to mention your Day Hospital?"

Very, very slowly, Sarah turned, a look of horror mingled with impending doom in her eyes. "What _about_ the Day Hospital?"

"A bigger place, you said. Better facilities, you said."

"What did you _**do**_?"

"I only —" She held out her hands.

"Wait! Don't tell me. I don't think I can take it! Can you _show _me?"

"But of course." She stared at him for several seconds as he stood standing on the sink, unmoving.

"Well? _SHOW ME_!" He smiled, glad to have been able to keep his promise. An all but silent snap of his tiny fingers, and they were gone.

**3**

They arrived down the street from an eye-popping spectacle. There were police cars, news vans from what seemed like every broadcast and cable station in the city and hundreds, maybe thousands of people jamming the streets. There were so many that the police had little hope of controlling the crowds, or of preventing them from getting close to their objective.

The stone castle stood about two hundred feet high, its massive walls taking in most of the block. From the turrets high overhead many brightly colored banners fluttered in the wind. Half a hundred colorful heraldic banners decorated the castle.

"HOLY —" Sarah began, and launched into a tirade that turned Seamus' face a deep red. "If you weren't immortal I'd _strangle_ you!"

Seamus looked up at the towering structure, its imposing mass so impressive that it seemed trumpets should be heralding its arrival. From where they stood looking up the street they could see the colorful County banners of Cork, Mayo & Sligo fluttering in the breeze directly before them, the rest of the thirty-nine spaced at equal intervals around the structure.

"Does this mean you're not happy?"

x

At her insistence, Seamus brought them into the great hall just past the huge gates, where hundreds of people were exploring the structure in the manner of excited children. The handful of police inside had tried to round them all up and put them out, but the disparity of numbers was so extreme that they were essentially ignored, and in fact only continued pro forma attempts to avoid giving the impression that they had given up.

Around the great hall stood suits of armor, Medieval weaponry and banners containing the heraldic arms of dozens of Irish families. Sarah could not help but notice that, at the far wall over the main door to the rest of the castle, the arms of the McGee clan, two and one white leopard's heads on a black background was displayed somewhat higher than the rest. It was an honor she might have appreciated better if not for the fact that she would rather not be identified with this spectacle in any way.

As she looked around, she could pick out in the crowd several familiar faces connected to the much changed hospital. It was easy to spot them by the thunder-stricken expressions on their faces. She could hardly blame them; one moment to be working in one's office, the next to have that office converted into a . . . She was even more certain now that she did not want to draw attention to herself.

Leaving the castle, and quite thankful that there was no drawbridge or crocodile infested moat, she passed close to where a newswoman was doing an on-air live feed report. She prays her brother Tim is not watching from NCIS. Pausing to listen just beyond the angle of the camera, she could clearly hear the woman.

". . . and officials are completely at a loss to explain this phenomenon, how a full size English castle could simply appear on a Washington street. Authorities . . ."

_**"ENGLISH?**_" Seamus cried in outrage, his shrill voice rising three full octaves as he stood precariously balanced on her left shoulder. "ENGLISH? What kind of TWITcould call this splendid creation _**ENGLISH**_?! LOOK AT THE _**BANNERS**_, YOU STUPID COW!"

"OW!" As Seamus became more enraged, he started jumping up and down on Sarah's shoulder and Sarah flinched, unable to keep from crying out. Several faces turned to her as she clutched her shoulder.

"Are you all right?" someone asked. Essaying a smile, she replied;

"No problem. Just a pesky twinge." She slapped at her shoulder as if in emphasis, but missed hitting Seamus, who had already hurried to her right, never for a moment stopping his outraged diatribe against the woman.

Sarah, fearing he might be tempted to turn her into an Irish setter, hurried from the scene. "Well, it's your own fault. Not everyone knows about Irish castles. They've seen 'Robin Hood', not 'High Spirits'."

"Huh?"

"Never mind," she regarded her diminutive companion with a slight smile, even while hoping her shoulder was not bruised. "You don't get out much, do you?"

x

On the way home, they decided it was better this time to put things back the way they were. It would raise just as many questions, but without physical evidence there would be no answers.

"I _am_ sorry about your shoulder, however. I did'na mean to hurt you, just that brainless twit got me Irish up."

"Yes, I guess she did," Sarah replied, opening the door to her apartment. "Well, it's been a long day and I'm tired. Can I trust you to be good while I'm asleep?"

"Ah, lass, you can always trust me. I may not know all that much about your world, but faithful and dependable am I and all your wishes I will always grant, never fear." She restrained from pointing out that that was exactly what she _did_ fear! "Never would I do anything to cause you grief."

"I believe you," she looked dubiously at the engraved box still sitting empty on the living room table. "You going to be o.k. with that?"

"Ah, me pretty Colleen, me home it is," he assured her with a smile. "If a bed I need, there is one. A shower I be taking, best place for it. A comfy chair and a good book . . . a wee good book . . ."

She laughed. "You're going to be a wild one to have around, Seamus."

"Aye, lass. That I am."

"Good night."

**Epilogue**

Hours later, in the darkness, Sarah woke up thirsty, and with the first few moments had to lie in bed wondering if the things she was remembering were real memories or a vivid dream.

Hoping, though doubting they were real, she got out of bed and, clad in panties and an oddly snug tee shirt, found her way by memory though the blackness of her bedroom to the living room.

When she turned on the light, she instantly realized the dream she remembered was no such thing.

On the table before her stood the carved box she remembered - at least she could now be sure of her memory - but in the mirror across the room stood a _stranger_!

She froze in shock, unable at first to believe the sight that greeted her. Then, with terrible clarity, she remembered her words as she stood just hours ago over the box while talking on the phone to her friend Karen. 'Maybe if I had long, silky blonde hair, legs that won't quit and million dollar boobies . . . '

_**"Seamus!"**_


End file.
